The Dead Internet Theory

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

The “Dead Internet” theory doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. Does anyone truly believe there are billions of people on Earth? It’s a few tens of millions at most, the rest is just GDP manipulation. It’s impossible to support that large populations.

I dunno, people sure do like to fuck a lot. I could easily believe there are 7 billion people in the world.

 

[ditto]

Reading that /r/wallstreetbets adding a million users a week.

Now that hedge funds realize they can manipulate gullible retail investors with bots, the dead internet is going to grow exponentially.

 

[Flavius Claudius Julianus]

I've definitely seen this and assume its shilling products or trying to get ad clicks as I've noticed it in tech related things. Like articles clearly stitched together from canned paragraphs or responses on places like reddit being completely detached from the question (and not just because of autism) e.g. recommendations for very specific things getting a bunch of responses recommending things not at all relevant to op.

Don't really know what solution there is or even if there is one other than trying to keep active on smaller communities rather than sewers like twitter and reddit.

Reddit is in another league with this. Don't they have bots which 'save' popular threads, then repost them at later dates? They also have bots which repost popular answers to commonly asked threads.

It wouldn't surprise me if half of Reddit was just intelligent bots communicating with each other. But half of Reddit is also attention whoring and narcissistic, so it's honestly a tough call to make.

 

[ditto]

Reddit is in another league with this. Don't they have bots which 'save' popular threads, then repost them at later dates?

Used to make original content for /r/simpsonsshitposting, until I started seeing my own posts being recycled by a bunch of reposters. They'd also post it to their Facebook groups and who knows where else, all unattributed (of course).

Industrial-strength reposting and I couldn't work out why. Fake internet points? Noone is getting rich from shitty Simpsons memes.

 

[Mr. Boogedy]

I just remembered a story a couple years ago on Github where a dependency bot opened a pull request, another bot approved it and a third bot posted a reaction gif:

https://twitter.com/gabro27/status/1173547934132178944

https://github.com/buildo/react-components/pull/1367

 

[Gimmick Account]

I don't think the distinction between sweatshoppers and bots really matters. They're doing the same job and aren't representing themselves as a person. When it is a "social media management" company or whatever they call themselves the accounts are shared anyway, so a sophisticated setup would use both, and elevate replies from bots to humans as soon as they encounter a challenging reply. It's the same kind of Chinese Room situation regardless of who's in the room.

Demon Seed (1977) is a great movie btw.

What really sucks is this muddies up the potential of the internet to bring about the "post-history": the idea that our opinions and media are archived in a way that we can go back and reference exactly what people thought was going on without the lens of future propaganda.
That's out the window when 90% of it is intentional interference, and we've seen how they can manipulate language with this power to recontextualise the past pretty dramatically in the last few years. Everything from at least 2012 onwards, which is when all the really scary US military social research evidence goes back to and the laws were changed to make more of it completely legal, and mobile users took over which means geolocation etc stopped helping, is a fucking mess that'll take much longer to sift through.

I've also wondered about certain websites which supposedly have millions of daily users not really feeling like they've sped up at all since the days when they had hundreds of thousands. One of those research papers I mentioned has to do with mapping social webs (much like the very glowing Facebook set out to do from the outset) so if we're routinely deanonymised, and especially if strong privacy tools aren't as strong as we think due to the quantum computers the CIA recovered from Roswell, it's somewhat feasible that we'd never realise we're in managed buckets even when we think we're viewing the same site.

 

[Sperghetti]

I agree, the amount of users on these sites just doesn't line up to me. Like, I can find many people in the wild who use these sites, but if you talk to the vast majority of them they rarely ever actually post. I wouldn't be surprised at all if alot of the active users on large social media sites like reddit and twitter and bots and Indians being used to intentionally manipulate public perception. The views prominent on these sites never line up with any demographic I see in real life, including in people who use them. We've seen enough tactics used to manipulate the public through information control that fake posts are an entirely realistic possibility.

This is especially how I feel about sites with follower counts. You want me to believe that this guy I’ve literally never heard of outside of internet gossip has an active fan following larger than the entire population of Cleveland, Ohio? Really?

We all know that people can pay money to have bots and fake accounts follow them to boost their stats, but I’d be very curious to know what portion of these platforms’ total users are bots and shell accounts versus individual humans who are actually using the website normally.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Bots are only possible in a cultural sense because so many of these sites (specifically Twitter and Facebook) are inundated by absolute retards. Even pre-Kiwi Farms and really getting hyper-aware of the state of the world/the Internet, I noticed how often there were comments on Facebook from people (who am I kidding, all women) who literally couldn't turn off their caps lock key when writing a thought.

I think it’s more accurate to say that bots are only possible on platforms, where there is rarely a sense of actual “community”, where you actually kind of get a feel for who the other users are from their posting style/habits and they’re not effectively just anonymous randos. On a forum with at most few hundred regularly active members, it’s a lot harder for a bot to blend in.

This is especially how I feel about sites with follower counts. You want me to believe that this guy I’ve literally never heard of outside of internet gossip has an active fan following larger than the entire population of Cleveland, Ohio? Really?

We all know that people can pay money to have bots and fake accounts follow them to boost their stats, but I’d be very curious to know what portion of these platforms’ total users are bots and shell accounts versus individual humans who are actually using the website normally.

If follower counts are anything like YouTube subs, it’s not so much that the number is literally fabricated - more so that it’s only vaguely correlated to how popular they actually are and how many people are actively seeing their shit.

Besides, it takes literally no effort to offhandedly follow someone, but very few people go through the effort of pruning their lists to remove people they’re no longer interested in seeing shit from.

 

[knobslobbin]

Spoiler: we all live in a post scarcity commies-in-space type utopia. If you warrant punishment you are sent to this simulation with no memories so that when you wake back up in spacetopia you appreciate it more.

I like to think that I'm here for a really heinous crime, but I refuse to learn any lessons from clownworld. I will no assimilate!

edit: how many bitcoins do you think I got paid to try and derail this thread since you're clearly onto something the powers that be don't want discussed? If you guess the exact amount I'll split it with you.

 

[Shovel Mech Pilot]

It's not a crazy theory. There are quite a few companies who specialize in manipulating social media discussion in favor of a political candidate, a company, etc. It's well known and public. I remember it caused a bit of a flap in 2016 when a firm admitted that they manipulated Reddit in favor of Hillary Clinton - I forget the name of the company but I'm sure someone knows. This was around the time when /r/politics shifted from pro-Bernie/anti-Hillary to rabidly pro-Hillary with no explanation.

 

[Basketball Jones]

I don't have proof any of you are real people either. I've seen some posters that not only have thousands of posts, but they also post long paragraphs about whatever is really going in in CWC's mind or how the entire modern world is a orchestrated fraud. The concentrated autism is like that of a bot.

I’m sorry I just smoke a lot of weed and get excited because I have no where else to talk about dumb Internet things.

 

[melty]

It's not a crazy theory. There are quite a few companies who specialize in manipulating social media discussion in favor of a political candidate, a company, etc. It's well known and public. I remember it caused a bit of a flap in 2016 when a firm admitted that they manipulated Reddit in favor of Hillary Clinton - I forget the name of the company but I'm sure someone knows. This was around the time when /r/politics shifted from pro-Bernie/anti-Hillary to rabidly pro-Hillary with no explanation.

It was Correct the Record
The biggest problem I have with these theories is that you'd think more people would talk about it if they really worked there. You will occasionally see people talk about russian troll farms, but nothing domestic on the scale some people allege. Wouldn't some of these paid commentors leak more about it?

 

[seri0us]

Wouldn't some of these paid commentors leak more about it?

What if they were all killed?

DUN DUN DUUUUUN

 

[Shovel Mech Pilot]

It was Correct the Record
The biggest problem I have with these theories is that you'd think more people would talk about it if they really worked there. You will occasionally see people talk about russian troll farms, but nothing domestic on the scale some people allege. Wouldn't some of these paid commentors leak more about it?

You're right, it was CTR.

I'm not surprised that people aren't talking about it more. Chances are, if you work for one of these companies you agree with what they're doing, so why would you draw attention it? Plus, it would be a career-ending move. On top of that, the media is generally disinterested in covering this kind of thing.

It makes sense that they would do it. Most people are on social media and controlling those discussions is obviously of high value to people who want to influence public opinion.

 

[Toolbox]

You're right, it was CTR.

I'm not surprised that people aren't talking about it more. Chances are, if you work for one of these companies you agree with what they're doing, so why would you draw attention it? Plus, it would be a career-ending move. On top of that, the media is generally disinterested in covering this kind of thing.

It makes sense that they would do it. Most people are on social media and controlling those discussions is obviously of high value to people who want to influence public opinion.

This is why I'd argue it's less of "dead internet" theory and more of a "lobotomized" internet. Most of the people on the internet are still real people, at least the people creating content, but there are at the same time so many people trying to influence major hubs of content creation on the internet for some political gain, that the amount of actually organically produced content has hit record lows and we're just seeing a recycling of the same garbage to push a point. It's how Reddit was changed so quickly post 2016.

 

[Gimmick Account]

This is especially how I feel about sites with follower counts. You want me to believe that this guy I’ve literally never heard of outside of internet gossip has an active fan following larger than the entire population of Cleveland, Ohio? Really?

We all know that people can pay money to have bots and fake accounts follow them to boost their stats, but I’d be very curious to know what portion of these platforms’ total users are bots and shell accounts versus individual humans who are actually using the website normally.

This reminds me of when Instagram, A Facebook Product™ was notorious a few years ago for forcing mass unfollows which culled the lists of problematic people (I specifically remember it happening to MIA, who is someone they can't put in a box, and she claimed she'd been getting reports of it from fans so I don't think they were garden variety bot purges) as well as forcing follows of new safer personalities on people who never subscribed to them to boost their numbers.
The spooky plausibly deniable shit we're talking about ITT is one thing, and objectively far worse, but that kind of overt manipulation feels somehow more perverse. Maybe I'm just desensitised.

I swear the latter still happens, as I've been getting people in my feed I'm sure I've never followed even recently. But I only use it when I'm really fucked-up drunk and these thots are chameleons so don't listen to me.

It's not a crazy theory. There are quite a few companies who specialize in manipulating social media discussion in favor of a political candidate, a company, etc. It's well known and public. I remember it caused a bit of a flap in 2016 when a firm admitted that they manipulated Reddit in favor of Hillary Clinton - I forget the name of the company but I'm sure someone knows. This was around the time when /r/politics shifted from pro-Bernie/anti-Hillary to rabidly pro-Hillary with no explanation.

I ranted about this on fediverse already but do you guys remember that time a decade ago when Eglin Air Force Base was the #1 "Most Addicted City" on a global reddit stats post?



Then a couple years later their research lab co-authored this:

Eglin AFB is the one that hosts the CIA base which is the staging point for Cuban propaganda ops, btw. Such as this completely legal op where they set up an entire fucking social media platform specifically for brainwashing (funny that they settled on Twitter as the perfect model for this btw) and staffed it with local execs that didn't know who they were working for:

...Which coincidentally shut down the same year as the Reddit thing, which also happened to be when the State Department got the legal power to do this stuff domestically.

 

[Flavius Claudius Julianus]

Used to make original content for /r/simpsonsshitposting, until I started seeing my own posts being recycled by a bunch of reposters. They'd also post it to their Facebook groups and who knows where else, all unattributed (of course).

Industrial-strength reposting and I couldn't work out why. Fake internet points? Noone is getting rich from shitty Simpsons memes.

Reddit fags live online, so stealing OG content for internet clout is something they live for. Also explains why these fags repost the same damn comments in every thread, with responses in turn also being the same. Leagues of sheep, nothing more.

 

[Xarpho]

This is why I'd argue it's less of "dead internet" theory and more of a "lobotomized" internet. Most of the people on the internet are still real people, at least the people creating content, but there are at the same time so many people trying to influence major hubs of content creation on the internet for some political gain, that the amount of actually organically produced content has hit record lows and we're just seeing a recycling of the same garbage to push a point. It's how Reddit was changed so quickly post 2016.

Being a goofball on YouTube is harder to fake (a bot can't produce an animated, living person on the cheap—yet) but many of these "content creators" at least on the big platforms are paid shills, and this is a known fact.

 

[12FluidOunces]

One of the things to remember is that this phenomenon is noticed only when bots fuck up:

r/GME - WSB shill bots think SSR is a ticker and are spamming it🤣🤣🤣

13,197 votes and 2,103 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Reddit only noticed bots shilling stocks when the bots mistakenly identified some patterns as organic talk about a ticker symbol.

How much of WSB posting is bots that are otherwise undetected? 1%? 95%? No one knows.

 

[Bongocat]

One of the things to remember is that this phenomenon is noticed only when bots fuck up:

r/GME - WSB shill bots think SSR is a ticker and are spamming it🤣🤣🤣

13,197 votes and 2,103 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Reddit only noticed bots shilling stocks when the bots mistakenly identified some patterns as organic talk about a ticker symbol.

How much of WSB posting is bots that are otherwise undetected? 1%? 95%? No one knows.

We can at least determine who ISN'T a bot by their actions. For instance, bots can't make clever comments based on context.

Then again, neither can people on reddit